koobas.hobune.stream
Program a Rhino model viewer?
Hi,
I stumbled across unity in my search for the right tool...
I need to develop an app that displays a 3d model. The modal I have in Rhino and can be exported to almost any compatible filetype.
The main thing my app needs to do is present the user with several choices (drop-down's, etc) and then load a 3d modal based on the choices the user then has to be able to rotate it and perhaps zoom in and out on it.
Is this possible (and practical) using Unity?
I'm a programmer with plenty of both C#, VB.net, VB, JavaScript, etc experience, but have never done anything with that resembles working with a game engine... How would you rate the difficulty of starting such a simple project in Unity?
Thank you all!
Possible, easy, good choice. IMHO.
That said, you could also look into one of the many VRML/X3D players, but the future is WebGL and the many frameworks coming out to support it. Check this out: http://www.chromeexperiments.com/webgl and http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/User_Contributions
WebGL is good stuff, I feel SceneJS is better for professional projects, while, three.js is more for 'fun' projects. However, there are few practical tools out there at the moment for creating WebGL environments other than your standard text editor. This is why Unity3D is attractive.
If you require physics and collision detection, you'll want to stick to Unity. SceneJS and others do offer picking and view/camera matrix to world matrix support, so no need to fault them on that point. Shaders for WebGL are fine too, though, most WebGL libraries don't come with standard shaders like Unity.
Basically, if you want to walk on the wild side, use a WebGL library and ask your clients to use Chrome. On the other hand, you could use Unity and ask them to install the web player, or send them an executable or application, or perhaps even make an iPhone app. Your choice.
Hey,
thank you for your responses!
I see I neglected to specify that I would need to distribute as an app to iPhone, and the web, and perhaps also android in the future.
I can not force my web users to stick to chrome, I would need to support all major browsers...
Unity still a good choice (if you have the money), but WebGL will work (someday) on all mobile devices. It already works on some. It's why Steve Jobs pulled Flash support afterall.
Also, there's a preli$$anonymous$$ary exporter from Unity to WebGL, so you can eat your cake and have it too: http://www.everyday3d.com/
